Well, it might be useful to seperate a couple of different factors: (1) There is the question of whether women are capable *at all* of a certain type of crime, for example, for whatever reason, they are incapable of commiting homicides. The fact that women *do* commit homicides falsifies the assertion that they cannot commit such crime. This point is actually relevant to the question of whether women can be serial killers like male serial killers. If the model of a serial killer is based upon what male serial killers do, it is plausible to think that female are unlikely to be serial killers because male serial killers will often use their physical strength and related capabilities to take their victims. However, this ignores the possibility that female serial killers may operate in a fundamentally different way, for example, as "angels of mercy/death" who kill people that they may be caring for and are either ill or physically weaker them. Realizing that there may be sex differences between male and female serial killers helps to recognize which situations may actually involve male or female serial killers. In some ways, this is comparable to how clinicians have thought about depression and using how females express depression leading to the position that males don't experience depression to the same degree as females -- the problem being that males may express depression in different ways and are thus missed.
(2) The problem with crime statistics is that they represent only those people who have been caught and convicted of the crime. Smart serial killers without psychotic symptoms who enjoy engaging in serial killing will take precautions against being caught (the "Green River Killer" is an example; I believe that estimates of the percentage of serial killers at large imply that many of them are unlikely to be caught). The degree of error in crime statistics, especially when it comes to female offenders, should be a concern because, in part, biases like females are less capable of homicide or assaults (or the great taboo of females commiting spouse abuse) are likely to affect whether females are charged with the crime, prosecuted, and convicted. So, I would amend Martin's last statement to say, in keeeping with an empiricist orientation, "woment are far less likely to be convicted of crimes". Whether they actually commit these crimes to lesser degree is an empirical question. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu On Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:39:31 -0700, Martin Bourgeois wrote: >Well, yes actually. According to Bureau of Justice stats for the period >1993-1997: > >Women committed 9% of homicides, 2% of sexual assaults, 7% of >armed robberies, 11% of aggravated assaults, and 18% of simple >assaults. No matter how heinous the acts you saw may have been, >women are far less likely to commit them. ________________________________ From: Don Allen [dal...@langara.bc.ca] Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 9:27 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: Re: [tips] Any guesses on the probability? Well no actually. In a previous life I spent about ten years as a prison psychologist. I worked in both male and female federal and provincial correctional centres so I have a fair amount of experience to draw on. I can assure you that women have committed acts that were as heinous (and more) than did their male counterparts. These crimes ran the gamut from homicide to sexual assault. One story that was frequently presented was: "I copped to the plea so my girlfriend could walk". I have no way of verifying those claims but I suspect that a number of them were true. The notion that women are less capable of vile acts than men fits well with a view of women as the "fair sex" but I don't think that it is well supported by the data. -Don. ----- Original Message ----- From: sbl...@ubishops.ca Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 5:29 pm Subject: Re: [tips] Any guesses on the probability? To: "Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS)" > On 16 Sep 2009 at 13:04, Michael Smith wrote: > > > > However, that doesn't answer my main question as to whether > there is a > > bias in the legal system and society in general that women are > > considered less capable of vile acts than men, and why this > might be > > Because it's true? > --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly (bsouthe...@frostburg.edu)
